The Importance of Being Dangerous by David Dante Troutt Page A

that could never respect him, or Robert Billingsley, or four little schoolgirls trying to take a test designed to show their ignorance. For years he had wrapped himself in earnestness and legal rectitude while being seen as nothing more than some sandtrap on the government’s favorite golf course and a mere bitch at home. Now, maybe he could play a little. A sumptuous sister and a round-the-way sidekick had shown Griff how to play again. They too could play people like pawns. They too could invent their own rules as they went along. And, in honor of the people who had brought Griff to these conclusions at last, he named the game Whiteboy.
    On the Tuesday next, Cicero Dean’s Investment Club was about to be born.

7
    â€œ SO FIRST WE’RE PLAYING POOR ,” Raquel started as they stood in line at a checkout. “Now we’re playing rich, Mommy?”
    â€œNot rich,” she answered. “Comfortable.”
    It turns out there are many different kinds of emergencies. There are the emergencies that come by phone, like the one Sidarra got about three years before when her parents were killed on a city street by a driver who had jumped the curb while trying to avoid a cab that had cut him off. Then there are some that different people would define differently depending on how they’re affected by them, like money problems. For instance, a landlord’s money problem is a very different money problem from a tenant’s, yet both tend to call them emergencies and both do what they have to do to get through them. Sidarra had been living in a black-and-white world, one in which an emergency wasn’t an emergency unless a siren was involved. But ever since the day she decidedshe had to join the Central Harlem investment club, she started living in the gray. Her emergencies were not subject to the approval of anyone else, and she wasn’t waiting for sirens anymore. That’s why she decided to take Yakoob up on his offer of a fake credit card.
    But nothing would let her go back to that Payless ShoeSource on 125th Street—or any other Payless. Raquel got her shoes all right. Sidarra discovered that, just as she had thought, the shoes they had picked out there were not real leather anyway. How could they be for six bucks? So Sidarra took her daughter down to Herald Square, where they finally did some real shoe shopping, the leather kind. One pair had buckles, but not the kind that change color after a couple of rains. And they had good arch support, so the saleswoman said, which justified the price—fifty-five dollars a pair. They bought three different color pairs. And some real Timberlands, and several pairs of socks. Then they went over to Macy’s, where they bought Raquel some tights, a few dresses, and new underwear for both of them—Sidarra bought lingerie, nothing too exotic, but sexier replacements than she had allowed herself in years. By the time they were done, Raquel would be the best-dressed girl in her class.
    Even at eight and a half years old, Raquel let very few things get past her. This could be a worry for Sidarra. Like other school administrators, Sidarra knew which schools—even which teachers—a person expecting to send their kid to a good college would want to attend. There weren’t that many of them, and most of those were nowhere near where they lived in Harlem. In fact, Raquel’s school was not known for stimulating young minds at all. But it was safe. At that point, safety was about the only thing Sidarra felt she could assure her child, and P.S. 27 did that well enough. Raquel might not learn to write full sentences anytime soon, but she’d more than likely live long enough to try.
    So Sidarra protected Raquel from news of a little new money in their lives. When she could, she’d shop alone after work and bring the clothes home for Raquel to try on.
    â€œWhat is ‘comfortable,’ Mommy?” Raquel asked. They were still